EA’s Patrick Soderlund on bringing FIFA to Switch, future support, system can stand up to mobile, hyped for Zelda
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 29 Comments
EA executive vice president Patrick Soderlund stopped by the Nintendo Switch Presentation 2017 last week to announce FIFA for the big N’s new console. IGN caught up with him to talk about the publisher’s support a bit more in-depth.
Soderlund started out with the following:
“We’ve been with Nintendo for a very long time. I’m a Nintendo fanboy since I grew up. Nintendo is the reason I got into gaming.”
“What I like about Nintendo is that they come to the table with a slightly different approach. They’ve done that in the past to great success, and sometimes not so much, but I think unless you’re willing to think about something unconventional, it’s going to be hard to break ground. Nintendo forces us to think differently. (Switch) challenges conventions, as game makers, makes us think about the platform in a different way.”
Rumor: FIFA for Switch based off PS3 / 360 versions
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Rumors, Switch | 72 Comments
During the Nintendo Switch Presentation, EA announced that it will be bringing FIFA to Switch. Eurogamer’s Tom Phillips now reports that it’ll be based on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions that the publisher still churns out. It’s unclear if that information comes from EA directly, though it wouldn’t be entirely surprising.
FIFA being made for Switch
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 3 Comments
EA has announced that it is developing a new entry in the FIFA series for Switch. Look for it later this year.
BioWare rules out Mass Effect Andromeda for Switch, but leaves the door open to the possibility
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 26 Comments
BioWare producer Michael Gamble is officially ruling out Mass Effect Andromeda for Switch. Gamble published an inconclusive tweet in October, but has now clarified that the game won’t be on Nintendo’s new platform – at least not initially. Gamble did leave the door open to the possibility in the future, indicating that it’s something that could happen if the fans clamor for it.
Gamble said:
“Yeah, not right now, no. We’re not planning on it. If the Switch launches and everyone’s just yammering for Mass Effect, who knows. We never want to close doors like that.”
Several years ago, EA published Mass Effect 3 for Wii U’s launch. That was handled by Straight Right, the same team that ported Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
More: BioWare, EA, interview, Mass Effect Andromeda, Michael Gamble
EA praises Nintendo, “huge fans” of the company, again teases a “major game” for Switch
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 24 Comments
Take-Two president Karl Slatoff wasn’t the only gaming representative to have spoken at the Credit Suisse 2016 Annual Technology Conference today. EA Chief Competition Officer Peter Moore also had a few things to say, including quite a bit about Nintendo.
Moore had high praise for the big N, noting that the company “has always been and will always be an very important partner in this industry.” He also spoke positively about Nintendo’s developers and IPs. Moore went as far as to say that the folks at EA are “huge fans.”
Specifically regarding Switch, Moore reconfirmed EA’s partnership with Nintendo on the platform. He also again mentioned EA’s “major game that will be distributed on that platform.”
Continue on below for Moore’s full words.
More: EA, interview, Peter Moore, top
EA will be putting one of its “bigger games” on Switch
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 83 Comments
Following Switch’s announcement video, EA was confirmed as one of many partners on board with Switch. However, no specific titles have been announced thus far. While that may be so, we’ll be seeing at least one of EA’s projects on Nintendo’s new system, and it’ll be a significant one.
At the UBS Global Technology Conference, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen teased:
“In terms of Nintendo, in their announcement they announced that we’ll be supporting with a game or two on that new platform. We haven’t yet announced what game, but you should assume that it’s one of our bigger games we’ve been involved with.”
Jorgensen also spoke about Switch more generally, stating:
“We’re excited for Nintendo, it’s an interesting device, but I can’t yet predict how broad it’s going to be, and will people be interested in a portable device alongside their regular portable device that they have.”
More: Blake Jorgensen, EA, top
EA pulled the plug on MySims Friends, a project planned for 3DS
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 4 Comments
During the Wii and DS era, MySims was a pretty big thing. EA ended up publishing six different entries in the series in the span of about three years.
MySims didn’t make it to the 3DS generation, but EA did originally have plans for a new title on the system. Behavior Interactive was working on “MySims Friends” back in 2010.
More: Behaviour Interactive, EA, MySims Friends
EA was once planning a Pokemon competitor for DS
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in DS, News | 18 Comments
EA once had plans to create a Pokemon competitor for DS, according to Nic Watt. Watt is currently at Nnooo, but previously worked at EA as a creative director.
In a recent episode of the GameHugs podcast, Watt stated:
“Working with EA was a completely different experience [to working with a small studio] as we had the longest prototyping period I’ve had for any game I’ve worked on: it was amazing. EA wanted this game where the idea and it was going to be their Pokémon game. They didn’t have an RPG in the handheld space and they really wanted one. We did a lot of paper-based prototyping for the battle mechanics and even made a whole card game. Then we got the people from Criterion – who worked on Burnout and with the studio – in [to test it]. That’s the good thing when you have a company of 300 people, you can just ask ‘do you guys want to come in and play our game for the afternoon.’ The team did find it hard because the prototyping was so long, and a lot of things got reset from time to time. But by the time I left, it still had not hit full production and I know that was really tough for a lot of people.”
Even though EA put quite a number of development resources into the mystery project, it never saw the day of light. It’d be interesting to see what it looks like!
EA once again asked about NX support
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 10 Comments
Yesterday we posted some comments from EA executive vice president Patrick Soderlund in response to a question Game Informer asked about NX. Now we have additional statements from another staffer: Peter Moore.
Moore was asked about EA’s stance on NX support, but like Soderlund, he was non-committal. Here’s the exchange between the two sides:
Eurogamer: Nintendo – it also has a new console coming out. EA, like a lot of publishers, were kind of quiet on Wii U. What is EA’s stance on supporting NX?
Peter Moore: I don’t know – obviously a lot of details are still to be unveiled. EA has developed for Nintendo for 30 years and I was famously quoted as saying we’re still good friends. I have lived the console cycle’s ups and downs – I launched the Dreamcast. Some publishers got behind that and some didn’t. But certainly, EA has never come out and said it won’t develop for Nintendo.
Eurogamer: EA had that ‘special relationship’ announcement for Wii U which never really materialised – how do you see NX being different in that regard? It sounds like Nintendo are again choosing a path which is not trying to compete with other consoles EA supports and simply be another Xbox or PlayStation. Does that make Nintendo a more difficult proposition to support?
Peter Moore: Nintendo has always based its success on its first-party games because it is a brilliant first-party developer. If you asked that question to them they’d say they have to launch with first-party software first – that’s where the first dev kits go.
More: EA, interview, Peter Moore
EA praises Nintendo, but quiet on NX support for now
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 28 Comments
We’ve seen a couple of third-parties announce titles for NX even though the system still hasn’t been properly unveiled. We’ve also heard about some publishers who have left the door open to support. With EA though, their intentions are less clear.
Game Informer asked EA executive vice president Patrick Soderlund about NX at Gamescom today. While he was quick to praise the big N, he wasn’t willing to come out and comment on the new platform for now.
He said:
“Nintendo is such an instrumental part of our whole industry. They deserve to be successful, and they deserve to be a major player in the business, given their pedigree. It’s not only the machines that they’ve built, but also the IPs they’ve brought to market. There are very few companies like Nintendo. Whenever they bring something to market that we see an addressable market for, we’ll be there. Given that they haven’t announced [a new console] officially or shown it, I can’t comment specifically.”
